


Bad Romance

by thatoldbroad



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 23:07:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16185107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatoldbroad/pseuds/thatoldbroad
Summary: “Or maybe my ass is like one of those rides you get on at the amusement park - you know, the kind that makes you dizzy? And it’s fun and awesome when you’re on it, and you love it and it’s fucking amazing, but then afterward you’re like sick to your stomach and even though your friend wants to go again, you’re like: sorry, once was enough. Maybe I’m that ride.”In which all men are dicks. And then Timmy meets Armie.Inspired in part by Insecure’s Season 3, episode 7, “Obsessed-Like.”





	1. Chapter 1

Another day, another subway ride, another elbow shoved up against Timmy’s side and he swears he’s going to break the thing in half if the manspreading asshole sitting next to him doesn’t move it stat. 

It’s just another shitty Monday.

This morning's Special is a short, skinny fuck that can't be taller than chest-high next to Timmy if they were standing. Typical. The little ones are the worst. Like they need _all that space_ to accommodate a penis the size of Texas. Except not even penises made in Texas are the size of Texas. A fact Timmy can attest to from experience—Jimmy, Joe, and Billy Bob to be exact. Timmy has a decent-sized penis: and that’s also fact, not bragging. And he can manage his spread just fine. That border between seats? Not a hypothetical.

Though maybe, hypothetically that's what he should've done with Pedro "from the Heights _uptown_ , yo, not that Brooklyn crap." Kept his spread to a minimum at least until the fifth date and maybe, _maybe_ there would've been a fifth date. Not—silence. Unanswered texts.

Timmy: Last night was fun.

Timmy: How’s your day going?

Timmy: So . . . 

Thank god for the three-texts-in-a-week rule that he had implemented way back ago at brick-house Bobby from Arthur Avenue who gave it rough the way Timmy likes it. When Timmy had the distinct pleasure of experiencing “ghosting” for the first time. Apparently, a technological improvement from that once upon a time simple practice of men just not calling back. When the _hasta pasta_ or _see you later_ still went unsaid, but could be suffered like a blip in memory in the long term even if hurt did linger for a short while. When one could if one so desired pretend that the guy was dead. Run over by a mack truck or mugged in his apartment lobby. Or eaten by a gigantic python that crept up his toilet from the nasty sewers of New York City while he was taking a shit.

But Timmy _can’t_. Timmy can’t leave it at imagining the look on Pedro’s face when the snake snaps off his testicles. Because this fucker Instagram’d his bi-weekly trim at the barber shop. Yesterday. Not long after Timmy’s last text.

The impulse to comment is fierce. A bone-deep clawing-at-your-insides itch that Timmy is aching to scratch. He has it typed: so, you didn't accidentally fall and hit your head and suddenly get hit by amnesia and forget how to use your phone? The Bobby-incident is the only thing that stops him from posting it. Two weeks of “harassment and stalking” (the NYPD’s words, not Timmy’s) by texts and online (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter – you name it, Timmy hit it) that culminated to real life Timmy showing up at the restaurant where Bobby worked to pitch the hissiest of hissy fits known to man. His high-pitched screeching may have cracked a few of those upscale wine glasses.

Satisfaction was brief. As in five seconds long. Which is how long it took security to show up and kick Timmy's ass to the curb and the NYPD to write up a report. No arrest was made, just a warning. Then, he went viral. That forty-eight second video circulated and trended for much, much, much longer. 

That was two years ago. It still haunts him.

_Is that why they call it ghosting?_

Resistance is the key. In 2018, to resist is to be punk. The anti to the establishment: _don't_ do it.

Timmy deletes his draft, shuts off his phone, and pockets away temptation. In ten minutes he’ll be at his stop. He can meditate until then, try to find his Zen in this rush hour chaos. Just as his eyes close, an elbow jabs him in the belly. The man next to Timmy has fallen asleep and is slowly slumping down like mud collapsing in on itself after a rainstorm. _Dickhead._ Timmy jabs him back and grins when he startles awake.

The ninety-year-old glares at Timmy, then punches him in the arm.

“Ow!” Timmy cries out and clutches his arm were the hit landed. He’s delicate. He bruises easily.

 “Shithead,” the man says and promptly falls back asleep—against Timmy.

_

 

Timmy inserts his hand in the scanner for the fifth time and—nothing. First Pedro and now this stupid piece of crap. Can _no one_ be bothered to give a response?

“What’s wrong with this thing?” Timmy asks Elizabeth.

Elizabeth looks up from the pile of mail she’s sorting through. “It’s not working,” she answers.

 _No shit, Sherlock,_ Timmy’s tempted to say, but doesn’t. Elizabeth would tear him a new one. “I know, but why isn’t it?” he clarifies, though he suspects that Elizabeth’s being purposely dense.

“Because Timothee,” she says slowly, setting aside a letter she had been reading, and folds her hands on her desk. “The system that supports the hand scanner is being upgraded to improve its functionality. The process is expected to take three days. Meanwhile, employees have been asked to use the online system to enter their time in and out of the office. You know, the old-fashioned way. An email reminder went out to the entire agency last week, which followed the initial email that provided all of this information two weeks before that.”

“Three days!” He glosses past the email comment. As the Special Assistant to the Director of the Press, Communications and Marketing Division, he’s copied to every email consisting of the hundreds that she gets daily plus to every sidebar conversation that involves scheduling, organizing an event, thanking some big-wig somebody, and making sure that a request for an interview or a statement is processed and reviewed according to their 12-step protocol. He can’t be expected to read each one. Especially not the five pages of tech-speak that the IT people love to send. _Hand scanner being fixed. Three days tops. Punch in online for now._ That, he would have read. Brevity: why so difficult? 

“Are they, like, on dial-up? I mean, I know the nineties is making some kind of comeback, but can we keep it to the high-waisted mommy jeans? Three days is a really long fucking time.”

Elizabeth doesn’t respond. She just stares. And Timmy remembers suddenly that her dog just died. And it’s a Monday. The disgruntled public have been saving up their rage all weekend and were now giddy with it primed and ready to unleash. She’ll be the first hit by the walk-ins, stationed as she is in the reception area.

“Never mind,” Timmy says, plastering a big, toothy smile on his face. He can turn sweet on a dime, but it’s not entirely a put on. He likes Elizabeth. They’re bitchy twins in a pod. “Have you had your coffee? Let me buy you one. I just have to show my face to the ice queen for two seconds then I can shoot out for all of our orders.”

Elizabeth doesn’t soften, but she rolls her eyes. The sign that Timmy’s been forgiven, or at the very least he’s no longer hanging at the precipice of nearly being thrown in the doghouse. Again. “Grande latte. Skim.”

_

 

“Tomato?” Saoirse laughs at Starbucks’ latest mishap. Six months of frequenting the location nearest to their office and not one of the five people on rotation every day from Monday to Friday between the hours of 8:00 and 8:30 A.M has managed to spell Timmy's name correctly. “You’ve got to stop saying ‘Timothee with an accent on the first ‘e.’ You’re just asking for them to fuck with you.”

“You mean Patrick?” He’s still not over Timmy swiping left on his profile on Tinder. At least he wasn’t on coffee-making duty today. Last time, he dumped shots of caramel and vanilla _and_ hazelnut in Timmy’s strictly black Venti espresso on ice. Timmy gagged worse on the drink than that time a nine-inch monster unloaded in his mouth without warning – the taste of just-digested asparagus lingered for days. 

"Fuck him. I deserve to have my name spelled correctly on this stupid cup – “ Timmy raises the thing and shakes it at Saoirse – “that I pay seven dollars for.”

“Is this really about Starbucks getting your name right?”

“Yes.” Timmy says petulantly and folds his arms across his chest. “It’s the _least_ I deserve in this life.”

“Pedro didn’t text back, did he?”

“Fuck him, too.”

“I’m going to take that as a no.” Saoirse hops off Timmy’s desk, pulls an empty chair to her, and sits on it facing Timmy. “What happened?”

“The same thing that happens each time! We went out, we liked each other, we went out again. We talked in between _for hours_. Like, nonstop. He was all over my Instagram liking each of my posts, even those artsy-fartsy ones that I haven’t gotten around to deleting.”

“Even that one of the spider web on your window screen. I think?”

“Actually, that was lint. From the air conditioner filter. But, yeah, that, too. He acted like he was really into me. What was I supposed to think?”

“And then you had sex?”

“And then we had sex.”

“How was the sex?”

Timmy buries his face in his hands. “Amazing,” he groans. The kind of amazing that was instantly addictive. Even after ten hours of enthusiastic pounding and an extremely sore ass, Timmy continued to beg for more. “Is that my problem? I’m too easy?”

“I mean . . . .” Saoirse shrugs. Likely because she put out on the first date with her wife and has never had to think twice, except for the brief two weeks they split up because Greta wanted her to be _sure_ , about whether there was something innately wrong with her that men (women, in her case) just would not stick. But Saoirse has always had Velcro-power. People don't just stick, they get snared. It's beyond having a magnetic appeal. Because there's attraction and then there's commitment, and maybe there is some truth to that if-you-believe-it-you-can-be-it crap because when Saoirse sets her mind on something, that something has no chance in hell of _not_ happening. Whether it's marrying the girl of her dreams or snagging a spot on the short list of Mark Zuckerberg's essential contacts, Saoirse got her way. (Her side job when she's not slumming it as Deputy General Counsel at their little City agency is to act as emergency counsel for all of Silicon Valley's tech billionaires. No conflict since, technically, she doesn't represent any of them. “I’m like a hotline,” Saoirse once explained. “Neutral like Switzerland on giving information.”)

Meanwhile, Timmy's luck peaked at getting a deep discount for the ointment he needed to cure the nasty fungal infection that mysteriously turned up on his toe one day. Hurray free City healthcare!

"Maybe it's my ass. No, literally—like maybe my actual ass is actually broken. Because I'm not always easy." There was Sal, for instance. They dated three whole months before Timmy let Sal eat his ass. And another month longer before they fucked—in a bathroom in Riverside Park and Timmy pretended to be a straight guy (that was the hardest part) just minding his own pee when suddenly, out of nowhere, a cock rammed into him. Taking it was the easiest part, which Timmy did at least six times more back at Sal's apartment. And again the next morning. After that -

“Or maybe my ass is like one of those rides you get on at the amusement park—you know, the kind that makes you dizzy? And it’s fun and awesome when you’re on it, and you love it and it’s fucking amazing, but then afterward you’re like sick to your stomach and even though your friend wants to go again, you’re like: sorry, once was enough. Maybe I’m that ride.”

“Maybe you’re swiping right on the wrong guys.”

“You always say that.”

“You always need reminding. Hang on, I think my phone’s ringing.” Saoirse roots around in her pocket until she locates it. “It was ringing—just missed it.” She listens to the voicemail and abruptly shoots to her feet. “Shit. I gotta go.”

“City Hall?”

She nods. “Scaffolding collapsed in the East Village.”

“What does that have to do with us? We’re not Buildings.”

Saoirse looks at him pointedly as if to remind him that they work for the City. _Everything_ has to do with them. “I guess we’ll see. And you—get it in your head that you’re not the human equivalent of a Tilt-a-Whirl on steroids. You deserve better than a guy who leaves you feeling that way.”

_

 

"I'm not a Tirt-A-Whirl on steroids," Timmy shouts at Daniel four days later, over the thud-thud-thud of the music blasting through the speakers. "It's my new mission. I mean, motto. I'm getting it on a t-shirt." He giggles, chuffed at the image of him prancing around in said t-shirt: on a New York City sidewalk, working it like the catwalk on Rupaul’s Drag Race. He might be a little drunk. Or a lot. Alcohol – lubrication for the socially inept, and it’s the only way he can manage the stress of the meat market culture at the clubs. Tonight he’s at Labelle’s. A memo had apparently gone out to the City’s hottest daddies and twinkiest twinks that it’s the place to be every other Thursday.

And without tequila, there'd be no "here to fuck ya," which as far as Timmy is concerned is the only end game that justifies baring his bony-ass (and bony hips and skeletal chest and chicken-thin shoulders) _ever_ for inspection and consideration outside of an agreed upon sexual transaction. He gets it. The Gay Mating Ritual requires going shirtless whenever liquor, strobing lights, Lady Gaga, and a cluster of gay men (three suffice) are shaken and stirred then dumped together in a space. Roof and walls not required. But there’s tradition in one hand and eye rolling in the other, and Timmy always, always has to resist the temptation to engage in the latter every time a Joe Blow Job cruises up close and too personal. Men thirst for his scrawny ass. That’s Timmy’s reality _now_ , not ten years ago in high school when being told he was “skinny as a bean” was the least offensive thing thrown at him. He’s not over it. Chances are, he never will be.

Daniel, who has as much Velcro-power as Saoirse, if not more, is of course immune to tradition. Shirt on, he’s had to bat away at least twenty twinks hustling for his dick. Also, he’s straight. He does this gig for Timmy’s sake. Wingman duty, or Timmy’s stand-in mom to intervene when a guy gets too handsy without Timmy’s okay or hold his hair back while he projectile vomits in the backseat of an Uber. Both happen embarrassingly too often.

“I have a new policy,” Timmy elaborates. “Starting tonight, my ass is going exclusive. Like, red velvet rope access only.”

“So, you’re not trying to get laid tonight?”

“I am.”

“That is . . . what are you talking about?” Daniel gives him that look. That one that says: I babysat you when I was fifteen and you were eight and somehow I still feel beholden and that is the only reason why you and I are still friends.

“I mean – instead of being the Tilt-a-Whirl that makes everybody sick to their stomach, _Immagonnabe_ The Gladiator. The ride that everybody lines up for, for hours. And want to go an again and again and again. But they can’t. ‘Cause I’m not gonna let them. Uh-uh.” Timmy punctuates it with a snap of his fingers.

“Just so I’m clear, my sassy gay friend, what you’re saying is you will only let a guy fuck you once?”

“Yes.” Timmy shakes his head. “I mean no, not once. One time access. Like, he can have an all-nighter pass, but that’s it. And once we’re done – We. Are. Done.”

“And that’s different how from what’s currently happening?”

“Because I call the shots. I get to say when it’s over. Or, or, better yet – I get to say _nothing_. I get to be the Ghostor instead of the Ghostee.”

“I see. So it’s like reverse fuckology?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, Dr. Freud, you better get ready to put that into practice because that guy over there is about to make his move.”

“What guy?” Timmy says innocently.

“Really? _That_ act? You’re pulling _that_ act on me? Like you haven’t been leaning up against the bar with your hip popped out and flipping your hair like you’re in a shampoo commercial at dude who looks like he was manufactured at the Ken doll factory? I’m not Ansel, man. Your talent is wasted on me. And here he comes, so here I go. I’ll be at the corner nursing my Sprite if you need me.”

Twenty minutes later, Ken doll who goes by the name “Armie” has Timmy pressed up against a wall, thumbing his nipples and sucking a peach-sized hickie into his neck, and sweet Daniel makes his exit. He knows the drill. Once Timmy has his hand down a guy’s pants or Timmy has shoved a guy’s hand down his pants – as was the case here – Daniel is free to go. And from the time flashing neon on Timmy’s watch, it’s early enough that he can fit in two more episodes of Westworld before knocking off to bed.

Armie is massive. At least a head taller than Timmy and twice as broad, and his oversized thumbs flicking away at Timmy’s tiny nipples the way Timmy likes it is making Timmy’s head spin. He can come from that stimulation alone. And he has. He yanks Armie back by his hair, grins wickedly at his wince, and whispers in his ear, “Suck them, please.” Armie pinches them instead. Timmy jerks against him like he’s been electrified.

“I don’t think so. Not yet,” Armie whispers back. “Let’s find a bed where I can fuck you properly.”

_

 

Men love to eat Timmy's ass. Besides lucking out on toe-fungal cream, it’s about the only other thing Timmy has going for him.

Timmy doesn't know which is responsible for the phenomenon—whether he just picks them right, like the winning numbers in a lottery, or if there's something about him that screams "I AM SOMEWHAT OF A HYPOCHONDRIAC AND THEREFORE SAFE FOR CONSUMPTION." He's a freak about hygiene and keeping his body parts clean, and if not clean then disinfected (e.g., slathered in anti-bacterial gel), and if not disinfected at least covered in material that's as tamper-proof as he can get it. That practice extends to washing very thoroughly before a date, or an agreed upon sexual transaction, or an outing to anywhere that could end up with him on his back. Or his stomach. Or his knees. On a rowboat. He’s not picky. It guarantees a fresh experience for the ass-connoisseur who wants to get at it like he’s a man on death row and Timmy’s ass is his last wish for a meal.

And Armie is _hungry_. Timmy’s knees have been hiked up to his shoulders to give Armie prime access and he’s been buried nose-deep in Timmy’s ass for what feels like hours but can’t possibly be that long because Timmy doesn’t have that kind of stamina. Not when it involves parts of him that make his eyes cross at the faintest touch. Case in point: within fifteen minutes of Armie making good on his promise to suck and lick and finger his nipples until they were sharp points that could cut glass, he exploded like a stock of fireworks on the fourth of July lit instantly and all at once. Then again fifteen minutes later when they were aching and _hurt_ because Armie kept at it, but still _so good_.

So good. So, so good, that tongue. Armie doesn’t tease the way some men like to, lingering at soft, kitten licks that build up to a more insistent pressing. He started fast and hard and hasn’t relented. Rivulets of spit drip down Timmy’s thighs and it’s so _dirty_ Timmy’s stomach flips on a sensation that’s not unlike nausea. He _loves_ it. All his inhibitions and neuroses muted to nonexistent.

It’s never just sex. That’s his problem. That’s what makes him an anomaly. Sex is his freedom. His bliss. The nonentity in which he can dissolve, melt in his bones, be the fire of his skin. Not think. Not analyze. Or guess and hesitate. And if he gives it up too easily, or too often, or too quickly—he can’t help it. He doesn’t want to.

Armie lines up his cock and pushes in. On a single thrust his penetration completes and _god_ is he big. Timmy can feel him in his throat. 

_Fuuuuck._

“Yes,” Timmy hisses. “Do it.”

And Armie fucks the way he eats ass: hard and fast and he takes no prisoners. Every jab glances off Timmy’s prostate and makes his toes curl, and his nails dig into Armie’s fleshy back. He kisses Timmy like he wants to devour him and Timmy wants to be devoured. To be kept. Squeezed tight and sized to a sliver against Armie’s bulk and safe. Like this, he feels safe.

He comes, shattered and crying out, and Armie fucks him through it until he does the same, hot and thick. Past that, until it hurts, until it stops hurting, then again and again and again until morning.


	2. Chapter 2

"Interesting," Saoirse says.

Timmy has just finished telling her about his spectacular night of dicking and how, despite being fucked stupid—literally, he orgasmed nine times in seven hours, a new record even for him—he managed to harness the few remaining brain cells he had left to remember to implement his new policy. So the answer was: “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” when Armie had asked for his number. Even after Armie responded: “fine by me.” Nonchalant-like, which normally had Timmy flipping on himself because indifference is the _worst_.

But numbers remained unexchanged. It helped that by the time he finally kicked Armie out of his bed, they were both in a mad rush—Timmy, so he wouldn’t be marked up late _again_ , and Armie to, well. Timmy didn’t know. Because Timmy didn’t ask. Likely to wash away that look: ridden hard and put away wet. Too bad. He wore it well, slick as his custom-made suit. And how Timmy managed not to climb on that ride again—call him Mr. Willpower.

And yet no congratulations appears to be forthcoming, not from Saoirse, who continues to sip her coffee in the silence that followed the single word she uttered and which now hangs like a guillotine. Dread congeals in Timmy’s belly and sits uncomfortably alongside the egg, bacon, and cheese sandwich he had scarfed down in the subway on his way to work. It spins him back to his fourth day on the job, when he was pulled into a negotiation that Saorise was leading against a film company that had breached their agreement, executed only three months prior, after a bucketload of violations threatened millions in fines and their precious license. Then, Timmy was just a lowly “Clerk,” pulled last minute into the meeting to take notes. 

All it took to get the CEO to fold and babble an admission was “The Saoirse Stare,” which followed a brief, but exacting recitation on the many terms and conditions that his company had violated. Precisely: three minutes. That’s how long Saoirse had him snared in icy blue, unflinching.

Timmy breaks at a minute and a half.

Truth: there had been cuddling. In-between, in the middle of the night, and in that last hour, when Armie’s hand lay low on his belly, stroking, like it was an old friend traveled there and back, familiar-like. And tickling—inside his elbow and down his sides. And under his feet. Which led to laughing. Joking. A chat. Then, idling, when words petered out or seemed unnecessary.

"And at that point, you _still_ refused to give him your number—is that correct?" Saoirse asks. She takes another sip of coffee and waits.

The combination of that Stare and her one-question interrogation are too much for an amateur like Timmy. Meekly, he answers, “That’s correct.” And rushes on:

"Should I have? Do you think I should reverse the one-time access policy? Or are you questioning the policy? Like, is it even the _right_ policy? Or, or—are you saying I need a cooling period? Like, to think through my actions and tendencies before I make any other rash, useless, band-aid like decisions that don't really fix the underlying issue of whatever the fuck is wrong with me that I keep ending up on the wrong side of an after-dicking?"

“After-dicking,” Saoirse murmurs. “There’s a term that needs reconsideration.” She shoots her empty coffee cup into a trash can six feet away, then slams her hand on Timmy’s desk. “Yes! Three-pointer. And I don’t know, Timmy Tim—you tell me. But later. I’ve got a meeting.” And with that she gets up, straightens her pencil skirt, and sashays away, leaving Timmy to contend with a roiling in his belly that’s not entirely a consequence of the hangover and his greasy breakfast.

-

 

As it turns out, the scaffolding incident did have some relation to their agency because at the time of its collapse, just shy of two blocks from where it happened, Dog Fish Productions LLC, a company that they licensed, had been filming Beast Boy: The Redemption.

Truth: the collapse had nothing to do with their agency or Dog Fish Productions, whose production crew was situated significantly farther than two blocks away. But Dog Fish was already integrating the incident into its film-making mythology—i.e., _Ryan Reynolds nearly loses an eye to a runaway scaffolding pole on the set of Beast Boy._ So TMZ reported. Naturally, obviously, their status-hungry Commissioner ordered them to get on that bandwagon pronto. She’s set on securing a City Council seat by the next election, so it’s get her name and face known to the public by any means and opportunity necessary. 

Which explains how Timmy and Mindy have separately accrued over 20,000 steps in the last two hours. They’ve been deployed to do outreach within the one mile circumference of the collapse—a bit much even by the standards of their fame-hungry Mayor.

"Hey Thyme, what’s the time?” Mindy singsong-raps. 

“Shut up.” Why did Timmy tell her about Starbucks’ latest snafu? Mindy is like a bear trap in the forest: unyielding and excruciating once she’s snagged something juicy and vulnerable in her teeth. He’s known this about her. But, apparently, today is the day to question all of his life choices.

“You got time, I got Thyme. Give me time and I’ll give you Thyme! I like it. I think you should work it into one of your raps.”

“First of all, it's _rap_. _Raps_ is only appropriate if you're using it as a verb, or phonetically to mean a turkey, cranberry and goat cheese concoction that's marketed as a step up from a regular sandwich so the fancy deli places can charge you an extra two dollars."

"Wow. This is why some people don’t like you."

"Second, I regret ever telling you about that." _That_ being the stupid video he made for his statistics class in high school in place of sitting for the end-of-year exam, because Mr. Lawton had encouraged them to “think outside the box and be creative.” Thinking outside the box had earned Timmy a shiny D+ and the scorn of his peers for life. “Hey, there's Timmy T,” was flung regularly in the hallways, like projectile spit, right before Timmy was pushed or shoved or crowded against the wall for a verbal beating.

Thankfully, his office abides strictly by a Code of Conduct, insulating Timmy from no worse than a little teasing after Mindy unearthed the video on YouTube and circulated the link. 

That was the price of confiding in the office gossip. Timmy has since learned to be more discrete. But also strategic, like: “So then we ran out of lube. Three bottles, can you imagine? And I thought I was stocked plenty for at least a week. We had to resort to olive oil.” 

And then there was the tongue bath, which Timmy also describes in detail, certain that each tidbit of his night with Armie will wind its way to the basement, second floor, and eleventh floor of their building, where, respectively, Kwan, Frank, and Todd are located: Kwan (Ghostor), from Administration; Frank (Ghostor), in Permits and Processing; and Todd (Small-Dicked Ghostor-Asshole), in IT.

But no joke: Armie spent a good hour licking him all over like a mother cat grooming her kitten for the first time. No nook or cranny was ignored, and by the end of it, Timmy was a shivery, gibbering mess that couldn’t have remembered his own name if his life depended on it. 

They stop at a six-story building. The first floor houses a laundromat. A woman is leaned over the counter reading a newspaper. Behind her, bags of laundry are piled on top of each other.

Mindy pulls out their agency’s leaflet on Women In Film.

“She’s not going to be interested in that,” Timmy says.

“How do you know? This is New York. That woman in there could be in the middle of editing an animation short on her Mac that will one day be destined for the Oscars.”

“That’s the New York Post she’s tracing with a finger, not a MacBook.”

“Figuratively, Timmy. Or maybe she’ll get back to it later—you know, to her dream. After her hours end on this day job that she’s toiling at just so she can get by.”

“Right. I’m sold.”

A bell tinkles when Mindy pushes the laundromat door open. “Hi, I’m Mindy. And this is Tim. We’re from the Department of Film, Television, and Other Entertainment. If you have a minute, we’d like to tell you about an initiative that our agency is sponsoring for women in—”

“You work for the City?”

“Yes. We’re from the Department of Film—”

“I just filed a complaint about that restaurant next door. They keep blocking the sidewalks with their fucking trash. It’s affecting my business. People don’t have space to roll their carts and when they get here, they’re pissed. Like it’s my fault.” 

“I think that’s Sanitation,” Timmy pipes in. “We’re from—”

“The City. You work for the City, don’t you?”

Timmy and Mindy nod mutely and shuffle closer to each other. They’re not allowed to use pepper spray unless the situation escalates to a physical assault, as in one of Timmy’s fingernails must first be torn off by pliers while he’s questioned under duress to justify such a defense. Otherwise, it's job termination and an undetermined number of nights at Riker’s Island, while the criminal charges against him are pending. 

The woman crosses her arms over her chest. “Then tell me why the City hasn’t done anything about that asshole’s garbage? You should be ticketing him.”

“When did you file it?” Mindy asks.

“Two days ago.”

“That’s it, then. The City has a three-day rule on processing complaints. I’m sure by the end of the day or tomorrow, it will all be taken care of.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Timmy agrees, slipping his arm through Mindy’s and slowly walking them backward. “Thank you for your time, Ma’am. Miss. _Ms._ And your complaint. We always welcome feedback from the people of New York.”

Upon the door, finally, they hurry out, free at last, and break for lunch.

 

-

 

A week later, on a Sunday morning, Timmy receives a notification from OK Cupid that he has two new messages waiting for him at the site, and, by then, Armie is no more than a ghost twinge in Timmy’s ass. Discarded to the slush pile. Filed away under “Next, Please.” Easy peasy—i.e., as easy as Timmy’s ass: credit the three one-night stands, plus that lunchtime fingering in the bathroom stall of a Chipotle courtesy of Grindr.

The profile is old, and Timmy’s been meaning to delete it since 2015. He forgets that it even exists until a new notice lands in his inbox. Strange how people still manage to find him, surely dropped to near obscurity by OK Cupid’s algorithms. He stakes a bet against himself on what he’ll find: two dick pics, or a dick pic and a hole, and zoomed to clarity so that he can make out every pore or each follicle of pubic hair.

He’s half right. Zaddy68 sent a close-up of his cock and an invitation to “ride it, little stud.” Tempting, because the cock is long and thick and curves upward in a way that suggests if the man attached to it had the proper skills, he could bang Timmy to an instant orgasm. But it’s 2018 not 2015, and Timmy’s graduated from faceless fucks. He should at least be able to identify Random Dude in a police line-up, in the event that a casual encounter goes sideways. So Saoirse lectured. And Daniel co-signed with two thumbs up.

So into the virtual trash bin the message goes. The next one is from BushwickBaby86. The name sounds vaguely familiar, and Timmy pauses to think, but nothing solid rises to the surface. He clicks to open the message, and his stomach drops. 

BushwickBaby86 is Elliot.

Elliot: his first date, first kiss, first love, first time. 

First heartbreak. Crushed under rubber and steel by an 18-foot rigger: that’s how it felt. That’s how it feels, now, but also like he's been simultaneously resuscitated back to life. Kissed awake by the prince that poisoned him. Tears instantly spring to Timmy’s eyes, and he hates himself for it.

With shaking fingers, he scrolls down:

_Hi Tim,_

_Been awhile, huh? How are you? Have you read this far? I hope so. I hope you’re reading this message, even if I don't deserve it. And I hope you’re still you, the way I knew you, sweet to a fault in how easily you forgive, or gave a second chance. I don’t deserve that either, but here I am—asking. At least, meet me for a coffee, please? Let me win you back. Let me work for it. For you. And I will, I promise._

_Elliot_

Memories jam like traffic in Timmy’s mind, a cacophony of noise: bleating horns, screeching brakes, the peel of rubber on asphalt. And from that chaos springs the worst of them: the silent treatment (Elliot); screaming fits (Timmy); disappearing acts (Elliot); minute-to-minute drunk texting after a fight (Timmy).

And the best: Timmy pulled under the awning of a bodega on a rainy night and kissed; Timmy pulled onto Elliot’s lap at a party, claimed, finally; and Elliot sobbing. Against Timmy’s belly, while Timmy stroked his hair, Elliot confessed: “I’m not out.” Not to his family. Please understand.

Timmy did.

He does. Three years later, the impact of that confession still leaves him reeling, that he had been chosen for it. Like a wounded bird had been placed in his palm. A crushing squeeze could have ended it, as viciously as a slip, intended or not, could have severed Elliot from his family, if Timmy had been thoughtless or petty. He was neither. Never. Not to Elliot.

No man has cried to him, since. Or for him.

Timmy's head clears. The traffic parts and he floors the gas: fuck the red light and intersection crash be damned. _Yes_ , he types. The letters drop from his fingertips like pennies from an upturned wallet.

Elliot’s response is immediate. Validation. They agree: 11 A.M., corner of Broadway and Lafayette.

Cold air hits Timmy as solidly as brick when he exits his apartment building. He touches his bare neck, reminded of the scarf left hanging on the hook inside his hallway closet. Paused abruptly, a niggle of worry catches in the back of his mind. Elliot didn’t say _I’m sorry_. He didn’t apologize. He never has. But Timmy flicks it away, irritating as a fly. Intent and meaning are what count, the rest—semantics. 

More importantly, he returned. Thus providing the adage: if you love someone, set them free; and if he comes back . . . .

_He belongs to me._

Timmy speeds to a run to the subway.

_

 

They don’t have coffee. Or talk.

Timmy is hardly past the threshold of Get Caffeinated when Elliot spies him, still skimming the crowd. Their eyes lock and Elliot shoots to his feet. In seconds, he has Timmy stumbling backward, back into the cold, tripping over his own feet until he’s pressed flat against the facade of the neighboring dollar store and Elliot is pressed flat against him, his mouth a searing brand on Timmy’s neck, mauling his goosebumps. He’s tall and thick, neither of which Timmy has forgotten, but he had their instantaneous effect: like a narcotic.

Elliot’s apartment is two blocks away. Later, Timmy won’t recall the details of how they get there, only that they do in a rush, with Elliot pulling Timmy forward by the hand. And once there, they tumble to the floor; Timmy sprawled on his back, thighs splayed, and Elliot between them. His jeans are dragged just past his hips and he's no more undressed when Elliot takes him. All of him: his fractured heart, his bruised past, the longing. All of it Elliot reclaims and makes his. Again.

_

 

In the middle of the night, Timmy wakes. He shivers, cold. He sidles closer to Elliot and slings an arm around his waist. Elliot shoves it off: “Babe, don’t. You know I don’t I like it.” And Timmy shrinks back, reminded: “Sorry.” He slides away, turns, and resumes the fetal position; he doesn’t bother asking for more of the blanket that Elliot has hogged to his side.

In the morning, he is careful not to wake Elliot. The clock on the nightstand tells him he has enough time to go back to his apartment for a shower, then a stop at his neighborhood deli for a breakfast sandwich. A coffee, the first of many cups he’s going to need for this Monday. Cripes. It’s Monday.

Timmy doesn’t have to leave a note, but he does: _Good seeing you again._ After a beat, he adds: _I missed you_ , despite the voice that warns him, in Elliot’s baritone, _too needy_. Because this time—this time it’s going to be different.

_

 

Timmy never had reason before to be thankful for the rush-hour crush, but the fact that it saves him the humility of a proverbial walk of shame—he sends a silent note of gratitude to the MTA, his first and surely his last. No one pays attention to the crusty-looking kid in day-old clothes still smelling of semen.

Luck persists, from his stop to his building. Only Luca, the doorman, can claim to be a witness. 

“Mr. Timothee,” he says, bowing gallantly, when he opens the door. A tradition born from when Timmy was eight, visiting his grandmother for the first time at the unit that would later become his. And a joke more than formality, because Luca is like family.

“I think you have something on your face,” Luca says, pointing in the vicinity of Timmy’s left cheek.

Timmy panics: oh god, don’t let it be come. He rubs furiously at his cheek.

“Never mind, just a sleep crease.”

Timmy drops his hand, glares at Luca, then stomps off to the elevator without a word. Cackling follows him and dies only after the doors shut closed.

_

 

Why does he still have the keys to his college dorm? It’s the same question he asks himself each time he’s back to picking out his apartment keys from the collection he’s amassed over the years, though it doesn’t normally take him the entire length of the common hallway to sort them out. He blames the lack of sleep. And the absence of still functioning brain cells, the last fucked out of him at the crack of dawn, when he woke to Elliot’s cock in the crack of his ass.

So he can’t be blamed when he runs into a wall. Or for thinking: why does this wall have a hand? A hand that grips him tight at the elbow and yanks him.

He looks up: _shit_.

“Hi,” Armie says, smiling. It’s dazzling.

Timmy finally finds his keys.

They stumble inside. Timmy’s coat is flung to the floor. His shirt is ripped open, and the buttons go flying, clattering like rain.

“Hey!” Timmy protests. Elliot bought him that shirt. Elliot hardly bought him anything.

“I’ll replace it.” And Armie replaces Elliot, too, for now, by the three fingers he shoves inside Timmy at once. _Oh, god._ He noses at Timmy’s neck and sniffs. “I don’t like how you smell.” 

Timmy pulls him up by the hair and sneers. “So do something about it.”

So Armie does. He latches onto a nipple and works his fingers into a rhythm. Brisk and steady, until Timmy is clawing at his back, surged up on his toes. And, still, Armie won’t let him come. His legs are shaking and he’s bitten his lips bloody. But Armie won’t let him come.

“Not yet, love,” he says, when Timmy begs, and scissors his fingers away. Ebb from flow, and the tide surges back down.

“You’re killing me,” Timmy gasps. 

“I hope not.” Then he swallows down Timmy’s cock.

Timmy shatters.

He sways forward on the downward spiral back to earth, dizzy, and Armie catches him. They sink to the floor, entwined. Armie brushes back his hair, and in his arms, Timmy trembles.

“You’ll be the end of me,” Armie whispers.

_

 

When Timmy gets home from work that evening, the package is there, parked at his apartment door. Delivered by hand, not mailed. Inside it, there are three shirts: a blue button-down replacement and the other two—“just because, xoxo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timmy doesn't know anything about cats and their grooming habits. Just saying.


End file.
